Feathers
by A Deed Without a Name
Summary: Easy cases, the knowledge that Castiel has plenty to keep him busy, a stable relationship with Sam. Things are going pretty well for Dean. Until an exhausted Castiel shows up in the middle of the night, begging for his help. Request. WARNING: Contains an established Wincestuous relationship, one-sided Destiel, major character death, and gore.


**This was another request from greektsik13 ( u/4636174/).**

**She asked for me to answer a prompt question from Tumblr: "What if Castiel died in Dean's arms, and Dean had wing marks burned into him for the rest of his life?" She told me that it was totally okay to include Wincest, and I sort of ran with it.**

**This would've been up sooner, but FF.N was refusing to cooperate.**

**Even though there's a lot of Destiel in here, I still loved writing it with a passion. At the same time, I sort of hate myself for it. Wincest is my OTP, but that doesn't mean that I'm not totally in love with Castiel. He's an incredibly interesting character, alternating between adorable and downright horrifying. So...it hurt to kill him here. Promised myself I wouldn't cry while writing this, and I broke my promise. In Modern Lit class. Super embarrassing.**

**WARNING: Contains established Wincest, one-sided Destiel, major character death, and some really gory angel-on-angel violence.**

**Requests are currently closed...I'm sorry.**

* * *

Dean realized, much later, that he should have realized who it was when someone knocked on the door of their motel room at two in the morning. Because, really, there was only one person it could be, if he was being honest with himself and not even a little paranoid. They just hadn't seen him in a long, long time.

The heavy, muscular arm that had been thrown over Dean's torso slipped off, and the mattress creaked right next to him. He growled under his breath as Sam sat up. He already wasn't getting enough sleep (neither of them were, but Dean was much more worried about Sam than himself), having only given up on research and come to bed half an hour ago, and now someone was intentionally sabotaging his schedule.

"Manager?" Sam asked in the darkness, voice rough and thick with sleep.

"Doubt it," Dean grunted, pushing himself up onto his elbows and swiping one hand around under his pillow until he hit the handle of the bowie knife that he'd stashed there. It had a steel blade, painted with a thin layer of silver, and he'd carved runes into it himself. It wouldn't kill a demon if he stabbed them with it, or an angel, but it would hurt like hell and hopefully make them sick. "We paid in cash, we locked the car, we were quiet this afternoon." When he'd convinced Sam to take a break from research and have a little fun. "Gotta be somebody else."

"Who?" Sam swung his legs over the side of the bed, preparing to get up, but Dean put a hand on his shoulder before basically rolling himself off the mattress.

"You stay here," he commanded, groping for his jeans as the potential threat on the other side of their door knocked again.

Sam snorted. "Yeah, to hell with that." Dean heard a zipper, and blinked. How the hell had Sam found his own jeans so fast? It wasn't until he touched denim and dragged the pants towards himself that he remembered that Sam slept in sweats. He was unzipping his backpack, searching for a weapon of his own.

There was no use arguing with him now (and Dean wasn't nearly dumb enough to try and put a giant with a handgun in time-out). Dean just did his absolute best to keep Sam behind him, beating him to the door and then spreading his legs so that his feet touched either side of the frame as he opened it. Fine, Sam was bigger. But Dean was older, so it was his duty to bear the brunt of any attack that came at them.

Though he really doubted he'd have to do that, now. He lowered the knife the second he saw the beige trench coat, milky and colorless in the dark brought on by broken neon, and stepped aside so that Sam could crowd into the doorway with him.

Castiel smiled up at them (Jimmy Novak was taller than a lot of men...but tiny next to the Winchesters). The expression almost looked weary to Dean, which made no sense at all. He knew that angels never got physically tired, even when slotted neatly into corporeal bodies; the grace that they ran on was an infinite battery. At least his eyes were just as bright as ever, shining a brilliant blue with some internal light.

"Sam," he greeted warmly in his gravelly voice, nodding to Dean's younger brother. "Dean. I apologize if I woke you."

Dean opened his mouth to verbally rip Castiel a new one, but Sam stepped on his bare foot to shut him up before he could get started. Considering that Sam had somehow gotten his freaking boots on before heading to the door, it was pretty effective.

"It's fine, Cas, don't worry," Sam assured, reaching behind himself to tuck his pistol away into the elastic waistband of his sweatpants. His hazel eyes had already gone all big and dewy with concern. "But...I thought you were out west. Something about the last of Raphael's followers trying to, uh...resurrect Lucifer?" He wrinkled his nose and curled his upper lip, unconsciously, just like he had when Castiel had told them what he was flying off to do. Like he just couldn't believe that anyone, winged and immortal or not, would ever wanna do something so freaking stupid.

"I was," Castiel replied. He sighed through his nose, a defeated little sound, after those two words. Dean blinked, and glanced at Sam, who was already looking at him with raised eyebrows. "Can I...come in?"

"Oh. Yeah! Of course you can." Sam hastily backed up to allow Castiel through the door. Dean did the same, heading over to the nightstand on his side of the bed in order to his knife down. He saw Castiel look over at the bed, the blankets that were rumpled on both sides, the twin depressions that were rapidly fading from the surface of the mattress. The angel smirked a little.

"One bed," he observed. "I see your relationship has progressed."

Sam glanced away, a blush that was visible even in the very-dim light painting itself rapidly across his prominent cheekbones. Dean just offered a self-satisfied smile, and a shrug. When Castiel had left them, they hadn't even had sex yet. It'd been all awkward kissing and hesitant touches.

Honestly, the first time he'd gone to bed with Sam, Dean's strongest urge had been to call Castiel and gab about the whole thing like a teenage girl who'd just gotten to second base. But he'd thought that it might be a breach of etiquette to tell your best friend all about how you'd just banged your younger brother.

"Uh, yeah." Sam dropped onto the foot of the bed, clearing his throat as if he were incredibly eager to change the subject. "So. Cas." Forearms resting on his knees, he spread his hands. "What's up?"

"I've come to ask for your help," Castiel said matter-of-factly. He strode across the room, his trench coat fluttering around him like a secondary pair of wings, and turned on the water in their kitchenette's sink.

"With Raphael's followers?"

"Stopping them has turned out to be more...difficult than I thought it would be," Castiel admitted. He cupped his hands under the stream of water, and, for a second, Dean thought he wanted a drink. Which made no sense at all, considering what he was. But, instead, he splashed the water over his face, closing his eyes in momentary pleasure. "It hasn't been going well." Turning off the water, he braced the heels of his hands against the edge of the counter, putting all of his weight on them. "It's becoming more and more difficult to replenish myself after every skirmish - they've blocked my connection to Heaven."

That explained why he looked so tired. And why he needed the refreshment offered by splashing water on his face. Dean, standing just close enough to Sam to feel like he could protect him, announced, "Well, that sucks."

"I'm not very familiar with that expression, but given the context, I think I can agree," Castiel said dryly, turning around to face them. "Under any other circumstances, I wouldn't dream of interrupting your courtship at such a crucial time." Dean couldn't see Sam's face right now, but he knew him well enough to be almost certain that his blush had just deepened. "But things have gotten out of control, and I have no other allies to turn to."

"Okay," Sam said immediately, the word at once both an agreement and a promise. He pushed himself to his feet, and walked towards the backpack. "Just let us get everything together, and then we can - "

"I would prefer to take only one of you," Castiel interrupted in his usual gravelly deadpan. "In my weakened state, it will be much easier to travel with only one; and if things don't go exactly according to plan, then I believe it would be in the best interests of everyone, everywhere, to leave at least one Winchester in the world."

There were a few heartbeats of silence, in which protest immediately swelled in Dean's throat. Sam beat him to the punch, though, emphatically shaking his head and beginning with, "No - "

But Castiel interrupted him again. "I didn't expect any part of this to appeal to you. You are a mated pair, after all; loss of one would severely wound the other." He lowered his chin a little in something a lot like submission, and even though his face had never been terribly expressive, Dean could clearly read regret in his grace-bright eyes. "But I promise that you have my word - as an angel of the Lord and as your friend - that I will be dead before I allow any harm to come to whoever accompanies me."

Sam looked back at Dean, uncertain and obviously a little afraid. Sam had never seen showing fear as the massive, embarrassing sign of weakness that Dean did. He half-hated and half-admired him for it. He saw the muscles in this throat move in a hard swallow before he turned to face Castiel again, and heard him resolutely say, "I'll go."

"Yeah...no, you won't." Dean stepped up beside him and dropped a heavy hand onto his shoulder. "_I'll_ go. You're gonna stay here, and finish the case we're working. I'll be back in a couple days." He glanced at Castiel, unsure if that was an accurate prediction, but the angle inclined his head slightly in reassurance. "Sam, if you can't trust me to freaking _Cas,_ then why the hell are we still hunting?"

Sam hesitated for a couple of seconds, before pulling an unmistakable bitch-face. He'd perfected it over the course of their romantic relationship, and even though Dean would play submissive in bed before telling him, he found it endearing.

"Technically, I'm not trusting you to Cas," Sam pointed out, with a shake of his head that sent his sleep-mussed hair bouncing. "I'm trusting you to a cult of Satanist angels."

"I love how, when you say it, it doesn't even sound weird," Dean replied. "Sammy, think about it. It's a practical thing. I'm smaller - "

"Not by much," Sam said, shaking his head again and raising both eyebrows.

"Upwards of twenty pounds," Dean countered. "Anyway. I'm smaller, so I'll be easier for Cas to fly with." He looked over for confirmation. Castiel nodded, looking a little reluctant to do so. Dean guessed that he didn't want to take sides.

Sam still didn't look convinced. Dean leaned against him, offering comfort and contact, and squeezed him with one arm that he slipped around his waist.

"I've done dumber stuff and come out just fine," he pointed out.

"Yeah, 'cause I was there to save your ass," Sam responded, a quick, almost said smile flickering across his face. But he'd moved an arm to grip Dean right back, more warmth and affection radiating from the gesture than (in Dean's opinion) he'd ever be able to convey with just words.

Castiel shuffled past them, completely silent but obviously uncomfortable with the display. Since he'd never shown any disapproval for their relationship, Dean guessed that it stemmed more from the fact that angels weren't programmed with intimacy than that he and Sam were brothers. When Castiel stopped beside the door, Dean kissed Sam (briefly, so he wouldn't squick Cas out anymore than he already had), then pulled back and grinned at him.

"When I get home," Dean promised, "you can do anything you want with my ass."

Sam's lips thinned and he rolled his eyes, but Dean could tell that he was amused. "Just...be safe, okay?" He cupped the side of his jaw for a moment, rubbing a thumb over the stubble on his cheek. "I'll be here when you get back."

"You'd better be." Dean moved away, scooping up his duffle bag from the floor and his jacket from the back of one of the chairs at their small table. He opened the door and followed Castiel out, hearing Sam lock it behind them once they were gone. Castiel put a hand on his upper arm as he hitched the strap of the bag up onto his shoulder.

"Thank you," the angel told him, very seriously. Dean smiled at him as he heard him spread his wings.

"Hey, what're friends for?"

* * *

When Castiel had said that stopping the last ragged band of Raphael's zealots had been difficult so far, Dean had more or less taken it for granted.

When a massive wing slammed him into the floor and the cold-burning metal of an angel blade drew a thin scratch across his forearm (as opposed to a slash that would have opened his chest) when he rolled, he remembered, and conceded that he'd been right.

Scrabbling through the inside pockets of his field jacket, Dean stared up at the angel standing over him, chest heaving. Female vessel. Silk pantsuit torn from combat. Under ordinary circumstances, really would have appreciated the areas that the tears were in - actually, no, he probably wouldn't have. Not with Sam waiting for him back at home.

And then, of course, there was the fact that she was a crazy angel and he'd found her trying to break a seal to get closer to raising Lucifer again. That was always a turn off.

His fingers closed around the handle of the angel blade that he'd carried beside his flask of holy water for years now, but he could already tell that it was going to be too late by the time he got it out. The angel was raising her own blade, its edge already tinted crimson with his blood, and her knees were bending so that she could drop to them and slam the blade through his sternum -

The bottom of a trench coat whisked past, inches from Dean's face, and a compact blur tackled his would-be killer to the ground as he sat up, blade in hand. He forced himself to his feet as Castiel stabbed the vessel directly underneath her left breast, ignoring the ache of his bruises and the sting of his cuts as the angel screamed. Blue-white light poured out of every visible orifice, and Dean slowly turned his holy blade over and over in his hand as the shapes of a pair of dove-like wings were burned into the damp cement of the floor. The span was barely six feet. Dean shook his head.

"They didn't feel anything like that when she was smacking me around with 'em," he remarked, gesturing to the feathery scorch marks. Castiel yanked his blade out and slowly climbed to his feet. He moved with what looked like a lot of pain to Dean, as if he were an arthritic ninety-year-old and it'd been a particularly wet winter.

"They're desperate," Castiel replied, once he'd straightened up. He walked away from the corpse, and now he was moving just fine, so Dean didn't know what to think. "We rarely fight with our wings, but I was forced into a confrontation similar to yours several minutes ago. It turns out that I'm...rusty? Is that what you say?...when it comes to this sort of combat. I came out victorious..." Castiel stopped in front of Dean, pulling his trench coat away from his side to reveal a hideous wound. His suit jacket, button-up, and wifebeater were torn wide open and soaked in blood, and Dean was sure that he could see the pink streaks of exposed ribs in the ragged gash. He felt his mouth drop open a little. "...but not unscathed."

"Jesus _Christ_, Cas." Dean made to shrug out of his jacket, meaning to rip up his flannel overshirt and bind Castiel's wound with it. The movements were automatic. He'd been around so many injuries that his first reaction to them was to do the fastest possible thing to make them even a little better - and he and Sam had found out the hard way that flannel was an excellent fabric for absorbing blood. "It's a freaking good thing you're an angel."

Castiel put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him from taking off his jacket. Dean frowned at him, but he just shook his head.

"I'll live," he assured, a smile flickering across his mouth. "I've stopped bleeding grace, and the pain is more of a nuisance than anything else. We don't have time to tend to it."

Dean, very slowly, readjusted his jacket. Something occurred to him that he hadn't been able to realize before, with the entirety of his attention taken up by the blood that pretty much covered Castiel's whole right side.

"Why don't you just heal yourself?" he asked, shaking his head. Castiel led him out of the room, back into a wide, bare corridor. The flock of angels that they were hunting had decided to roost in an abandoned factory, which was a huge pain in the ass. It was all concrete, standing water, and rust. Dean held back a loud sigh when his boots splashed through a grimy puddle.

"I...don't have the energy," Castiel admitted. "Not after flying. I won't be able to heal myself - or take you back to Sam, for that matter - until we've eliminated all of Raphael's followers and I've reestablished my connection to Heaven."

Dean stared at him, then looked away, shaking his head and tightening his grip on his blade.

"We could've driven," he muttered.

"It would've been too late," Castiel replied.

"How many more angels do we have to kill?" Dean asked, changing the subject. It was just a little too weird, walking next to Castiel and knowing that he had a gaping hole in his chest. It made him cringe, inside himself.

"Before going to you," Castiel answered, "I had succeeded in killing three of the original eight. After we arrived, you immediately took care of one, and I have killed two others. Two remain, and one is wounded."

"Any idea where they are?" Dean unconsciously raised his blade a little. He wasn't going to get caught off-guard again. More specifically, he wasn't to get beat up by a pair of fluffy cherub wings again.

"Hunting us, most likely." Dean had always been secretly jealous of Castiel's ability to say even the most god-awful things in a tone that suggested he was discussing the weather.

"Awesome," Dean replied grimly, and tried to tread just a little more lightly. He knew it wouldn't do any good. It was a stupid, useless human instinct...but it made him feel better.

It didn't take them long at all to stumble upon one of their quarry. No blue-white grace glow was gushing out of him, so he must be the one that Castiel hadn't hurt. He was kneeling in front of a large, nasty-looking rune on the wall (which had most likely been drawn with the blood of the dead lamb lying crumpled beneath it), hands clasped together like he was praying as he chanted loudly in a language that honestly made Dean's skin crawl. He was so intent on whatever the hell he was doing that he didn't notice when Castiel walked up behind him. He noticed when the first eight inches or so of the angel blade slipped neatly into his back, but it was a little too late by then.

Castiel walked back to Dean, impossibly dignified - and stumbled. Badly. He would have cracked his skull on the floor if Dean hadn't lunged forward and caught him, one hand accidentally pressing against the wet warmth of the wound in his side. It didn't disgust him. Just worried him, as he felt a slow heartbeat in it, and made him feel guilty, when Castiel winced in unmistakable pain.

He opened his mouth to tell him that they absolutely had to take care of that, but Castiel looked up at him before he could, and said, "I'm winning."

Dean blinked, as he slowly maneuvered Castiel back up into a standing position. He cautiously took his hands away, moving slowly just in case, then dropped them when the wounded angel proved himself capable of staying on his feet without help.

"What the hell're you talking about?" he asked, keeping a careful eye on Castiel as they left to search for their last target. He seemed steady enough now, but he'd seemed steady enough the last time, too. Dean wasn't going to let him collapse.

"You've killed one of them," Castiel said, and Dean was sure that there was something like a smile on his face while he spoke. "I've killed six. I'm winning."

Dean stared at him for a moment, then shook his head and proclaimed, "This isn't a game." Without thinking about it, he'd lapsed into the slow, well-enunciated speech that he occasionally used with Castiel.

Speaking of Castiel, he was most definitely grinning right now. "Would you like to make it one?"

"No!" Thinking of the blood that was even now seeping out of Castiel's vessel, Dean shook his head again, much more firmly this time.

"Says the obvious loser." And the winged son of a bitch actually had the guts (apparently, they hadn't all dripped out of him through that gash) to look smug. Dean exhaled explosively, and it came out sounding like a growl.

"Okay. Fine. It's a game." He shrugged, a little angrily. "Since you're gonna win hands-down, unless there are another six angels flapping around this place..." And, oh, god, if there were...he'd turn the blade he was carrying on himself. "...what d'you get when I lose?"

Castiel lifted his chin a little, calm blue eyes focused on something in the distance instead of Dean. His trench coat whisked around his calves. He took a deep breath (though Dean knew that he didn't need to), let it out, then steadily said, "I think I want a kiss."

Dean barked out a laugh, and was ready to keep going with it, until he realized that Castiel was no longer smiling. Just observing him with one of his millions of unreadable expressions settled firmly onto his face. Dean swallowed, feeling a very odd feeling take up residence in the pit of his stomach as he did so.

"You kissed Meg," he pointed out. The sudden memory made him grimace. "You _really_ kissed her."

"I've never kissed another man." Castiel's eyes were mild as he presented his counterargument. "Or a human. It's in my nature, these days, to be curious."

"Well, _I_ can't kiss you," Dean declared, shaking his head. "I mean...I've got Sam." And he wasn't about to cheat on him. Definitely not.

"Either you or Sam would suffice," Castiel replied. Dimly, Dean became aware of the fact that they were both still walking. Weird. This seemed like something that they should've come to a halt to discuss. "It would be meaningless."

"Because you're just curious," Dean stated. Despite the way he'd said it, it was most definitely a question.

"Yes."

"No other reason?"

Castiel looked at him, and cocked his head in a distinctly birdlike gesture that Dean had unconsciously found endearing for years. He felt a little flutter of warmth whenever he made it.

"Are you accusing me of something?" he asked. Dean shook his head. "I'm an angel. There are many feelings and relationships that I am unable to form."

"Yeah, trust me, Cas, I'm pretty aware." Dean paused. The echoing of his bootsteps was pretty loud, with nothing at all around to absorb the noise, but he was sure that he'd heard something else despite that. "Hey...did you - "

He was cut off when Castiel used one hand to shove him into the wall with tremendous force. It wasn't all the strength he had - not by a long shot - but it knocked the breath out of him pretty effectively. His ribs creaked in their moorings, and he felt bruises bloom all along his left side. He almost dropped the angel blade, and only barely managed not to.

He was shocked. And more than a little pissed, of course. His weapon hand twitched vaguely in Castiel's direction, and he raised his head with a snarl just in time to see the angel, one leg completely useless because of a deep slash, take a second brutal cut across the chest. Another angel, in a vessel that was all but rippling with muscle, was backing him up into a wall. He was also jabbing at him every couple of seconds, as if he enjoyed the brief pain that flickered across Castiel's face. Or maybe his quiet gasps.

The other angel had a neat cut across his lower back, grace-light shining from it in straight beams. He had to be the one that Castiel had managed to injure. It wasn't until Dean thought that that he realized there was no light coming from Castiel's new wounds. Maybe he'd found some way to hold his grace in.

Maybe there just wasn't enough left of it, anymore, to pour out of cuts and scrapes.

Dean had recovered from being pushed into the wall (which he now realized Castiel must have done to protect him from the incoming wrath of that Incredible Hulk angel). He shoved off of it, moving on adrenaline and instinct, and buried his blade all the way up to its hilt in the side of Castiel's tormentor. The angel bellowed in agony, a sound like an eagle screaming. But it - he - _whatever_ didn't die. Tougher than the average dick-with-wings, apparently.

"C'mon, Cas," Dean said under his breath, darting forward and basically scooping him up. He threaded one arm through his armpits, using his other hand to tightly grip his wrist after throwing it over his own shoulders. "Let's go. Needa get you fixed up."

"C-can't - " Castiel managed shakily. With the other angel still wailing behind them, Dean got a good grip on his own personal seraph, and made for a door that he really hoped was the nearest exit. He was pretty much dragging Castiel, but that was okay. He didn't weight much.

_"Can,"_ Dean shot back through gritted teeth. "Angel of the fucking Lord, remember?"

_"Dean!"_

"Okay, okay, sorry." Dean kicked open the door, and cool night air flooded in, along with the wet, swampy scent of the nearby river. He praised his scent of direction with every ounce of conviction he could muster. "I'll...say a hundred Hail Marys later. Or something. Whatever. Let's just get you outta here, okay?"

"No." Castiel tried to dig in the one heel that was currenly responding to commands from his brain and, of course, failed. Dean wondered if the nerves in his other leg had been severed as he got them down about five steps and out into the parking lot. "We have to - "

"We'll come back!" Dean snapped, interrupting him. He was breathing hard, and the muscles in his legs had started to burn. Just because Castiel didn't weight much didn't mean that running while carrying him was a piece of cake. "You're dying. I know you are - you're not bleeding grace. I need to get you someplace safe, and patch you up as best I can." He unintentionally kicked a rock out of the way, sending it skittering across the asphalt. "Stop you from bleeding out, at least."

Castiel was silent as they crossed the border between parking lot and lawn - or, more accurately, the border between irregular puddle of faded blacktop and dry field of waist-high weeds. Dean glanced back over his shoulder, seeing a huge figure suddenly silhouetted in the doorway they'd just come out of, picked out by the moonlight that streamed in through the many windows. He rapidly faced forward again, forcing himself to move faster, go further.

He had no idea what he thought he was going to do. There was no angel-warded Impala waiting for them at the edge of this abandoned lot, with Sam and a pitcher of holy oil inside. There was no pair of grace-fueled super-wings to whisk them out of here in the nick of time. There weren't even any walls around, for Dean to draw a banishing rune on with his own blood. Not that that last thing actually mattered, since doing that would get rid of Castiel, too.

The angel that was after them could fly, and Castiel couldn't. They were completely screwed. But Dean Winchester, who had never fully grasped the concept of putting the words "give" and "up" together, kept running.

And then he tripped.

Dean wasn't even sure what the toe of his boot caught on - some irregularity in the sun-baked ground, maybe. It was pretty inconsequential. What mattered was that it sent him sprawling, deeply scraping his face and his hands. One of his kneecaps struck a rock, and pain jolted through his leg. He fell in a tangle with Castiel, and when the angel slammed into the ground at high speed, he let out a small, pitiful sound of pain. Hearing that hurt Dean more than his knee and his scrapes combined.

"Okay, okay..." Grabbing Castiel, he tried to get them both upright, but the leg that he'd hurt failed him. It sent them both slumping back down into the weeds. Dean landed on his ass, Castiel facing him and all but kneeling in his lap. Castiel's mangled upper body folded against Dean's chest, and he automatically put his arms around him. He held him carefully, because he was so light that he felt like he was made of toothpicks and tissue paper. Dean wondered how much of someone's weight was accounted for by blood. How much by angelic grace. "We can make it. It'll be all right."

Castiel slowly shook his head, and Dean didn't scream at him to stop, even though he wanted to. They were going to die. _Shit,_ they were both going to die, and Dean was gonna do it miles and miles from Sam. That was somehow worse than they dying itself.

"Dean...I lied," Castiel said, voice even rougher than usual. Dean's grip on him reflexively tightened when he heard feather's rustling, but it was just Castiel's wings. Maybe the two of them were temporarily hidden, safe for the moment.

"I don't care," he muttered. The wound on Castiel's chest was cold against him.

"I lied about why I wanted you to kiss me." Castiel, apparently, was not going to be deterred. He closed his eyes, and sighed softly. "I was not simply curious."

It took several seconds for that to sink in, and Dean was still processing it when his mouth opened and he said, "You never said anything."

"I'm an angel," Castiel replied. His head had somehow come to rest on Dean's shoulder, and his voice reverberated through all of the hollow places inside of him. "Despite the attachment that I may have formed to you, I would be inadequate in a relationship. I would be unable to meet your emotional needs and, likely, your physical ones, as well." More feathers rustled. "At first, I didn't want to cause you any unnecessary stress. And then you acknowledged your latent feelings for Sam...you began a relationship with someone who could give you everything I knew I couldn't."

Dean swallowed. It somehow hurt. Something light and warm settled around his shoulders and onto his back, an impossibly-soft blanket, and he heard more rustling as it happened.

"Have you got your wings around me?" he asked huskily, instead of saying something a little more serious. Like about how Castiel had been harboring puppy love, watching and hurting while Dean paid more and more attention to Sam.

"They're almost pure grace," Castiel replied, taking in a deep, rattling breath. "They'll provide much better protection than canvas." Dean felt the feathers on the undersides of his wings brush against his field jacket.

"Cas, c'mon, I don't need protection." He heard the flapping of wings, and held Cas tighter when the sound of massive boots crunching through the grass reached him. Thankfully, the last of the angels they'd come to destroy didn't seem to be anywhere near them. Castiel mewled when Dean's arms tightened around him, and he couldn't tell if it was with pleasure or pain. Just to be on the safe side, he winced, and breathed, "Sorry."

"No," Castiel rasped, winding his fingers into the cotton of Dean's T-shirt and clinging to him. "Doesn't hurt." Dean winced again, wondering if that was because his vessel's feeling was fading without blood to feed his nerves. Or maybe he was lying. Maybe he was just craving touch. Dean felt a stab of guilt, and wished that he would have held him before now. If only Castiel would've just _said_ something.

"We'll get out of this," Dean promised softly, feeling the tips of Castiel's primaries flutter against the small of his back, tensing up as the other angel got closer and closer. "Get you home. Sew everything up. Things'll be better. He'd hug Castiel as often as he could. Touch him. Hold him. He'd make sure he knew he was loved - even if it wasn't romantic.

"I know." Castiel buried his face in Dean's neck, covering every single vulnerable spot on him with his own body, as a huge figure loomed up against the moonlight behind him. "I trust you."

By the time Dean bellowed out, _"No!"_ the blade was already deep in Castiel's back. The entire world seemed to explode into brilliant blue light on one side of him, as dying grace flooded out of every orifice it could find. He could have let go of him - he probably should have - but, instead, he hung on, and screamed with grief and pain as Castiel's wings ignited. He felt every feather burn its way through his clothing like it wasn't even there, searing its shape right into his skin. Arms, shoulders, back, sides, chest - Castiel's full span sank into him with a smell that was way too much like bacon burning, and he blinked back tears and the urge to just pass out, and let it happen.

Castiel's vessel collapsed against him, empty and burned out. It felt so light that he was afraid a sudden gust of wind would blow it away, and he held onto it as tightly as he could as the blade was yanked out. The other angel raised it again, impassive, as Dean slipped a hand inside of Castiel's trench coat.

A blade rammed into the angel's solar plexus was much more effective than one rammed into its side. The last vestiges of his jacket fell away from his arm as the angel toppled backwards, yanking the hilt of Castiel's blade out of Dean's hand. Flakes of charred flesh swirled around him as his arm thudded back onto Castiel's empty body.

"You still won," Dean told Castiel, reaching up to stroke his hair as he began to laugh. His cheeks were wet. "Two to six. You still won."

* * *

It took months for Dean to get back to Sam.

He knew that his brother was looking for him, out of his mind with worry and guilt. He called him. He texted him. He let him know that he was badly wounded, but alive. He told him that Castiel hadn't been quite so lucky. He heard Sam hold back tears as he thickly said his goodbyes.

Sam probably thought that they just kept missing, crossing back and forth in an effort to find each other. Dean knew better. He'd built a funeral pyre for Castiel, ignoring the clear fluid that wept from cracks in his blackened skin as he did. After burning him, he'd wrapped himself up in his trench coat, and walked five miles to a seedy motel. He paid upfront for two months, and ended up staying four.

He slept, ate, and slowly healed, an animal that had dug itself a deep, dark burrow in order to lick its wounds. He basically shut down. He didn't think about how he'd gotten third-degree burns all over his upper body, or why he was hiding. After about two weeks, he tried washing himself for the first time, peeling off the crispy black stuff where new skin was growing underneath. It wasn't exactly a normal color, but it had feeling and it bled, so he figured that that was good enough.

It still hurt, though. He stayed until it didn't, and until all the dead skin was gone, leaving behind smooth, glossy, blue-black scars in the shapes of Castiel's wings. Then he went and found Sam, covered by a jacket.

He felt better the second that his younger brother threw his arms around him and squeezed, and knew that he probably should've let him find him a whole lot sooner. Sam touched him in all the right ways, said all the right things, and Dean leaned into every single point of contact. He was grateful that Sam didn't fall silent until he'd worked both the jacket and the T-shirt off of him.

By some quirk of angel biology, even the parts of Castiel's wings that his vessel had been in the way of had ended up emblazoned on Dean's skin. The rounded bases of them were centered on the left side of his ribcage, because of the way that Castiel had been laying against him. They spread up, downies on his biceps and coverts on his shoulders, and the primaries crossed in the small of his back. He moved his arms so that it looked like he was holding something invisible, and put the wings back together.

Sam's mouth was slightly open as he reached out to touch him, and Dean let him, turning obligingly to let him see the full span. He closed his eyes when Sam touched the alulas that were burned into the skin over his collarbones. When he traced the perfect outlines of quills and barbs with his fingertips, Dean shivered a little.

"Tattoos?" Sam asked uncertainly, stepping back. Dean opened his eyes. "You would...you'd want to remember him. I know."

Sam knew that Castiel had died, but he didn't know how. Dean hadn't told him. He'd never been able to coax the words out - how it'd been in his arms, right after he confessed to loving him, and Dean had let him leave his mark on his body. Wanted him to. He had to admit, the scars probably looked a lot like tattoos.

He still couldn't talk about Castiel's death. It was his secret, just as painful and precious as the trench coat that was neatly folded in the bottom of his duffle bag. He thought that it'd be years before he was willing to give it up. And he might not even ever have to.

"Yeah," Dean agreed, reaching for the one person he had left, wanting to be held and loved. "Tattoos. Hurt like hell."

After all, Castiel might come back, ready for Dean to right everything he'd done wrong with him.

He had all the other times.

Was one more miracle really too much to ask?


End file.
